YORK – House Government Oversight Committee Chairman Seth Grove (R-Dover) issued the following statement in response to the decision by Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration to withdraw an appeal over a project labor agreement (PLA), which was before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. A PLA is a collective bargaining agreement with one or more labor organizations to establish terms and conditions of employment for a certain construction project.

“I commend the Wolf Administration, specifically Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Secretary Leslie Richards, for withdrawing their appeal from the state Supreme Court.

The Commonwealth Court had already ruled against the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s (PennDOT) plan in two lawsuits to use a PLA as part of a $20 million, multi-year project in Montgomery County. These rulings alone were enough to indicate an appeal should never have been filed.

“From the onset, the plan to use the PLA has been marked by controversy. John “Johnny Doc” Dougherty, a Philadelphia labor boss who has been brought up on 116 federal indictments, was the signer of the PLA. He is also the brother of state Supreme Court Justice Kevin Dougherty. The optics of the plan to use an PLA in the road project are just bad. If anything, it abused the taxpayers’ trust of government being responsible stewards of their money.

“I want to thank private-sector companies Allan Myers and JD Eckman for battling PennDOT in court for its attempt to set a bad precedence of allowing union-only agreements for state road work.”
Representative Seth Grove
196th District
Pennsylvania House of Representatives
Media Contact: Greg Gross
717.260.6374 ggross@pahousegop.comRepGrove.com / Facebook.com/RepSethGrove